© BELGIUM
All local authorities involved and the Brussels-Capital Region have been informed about the progress of the works at the Leonard Cross. Flemish Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters (Open VLD) said this on Friday during a visit to the intersection.
“Nothing has gone wrong in communication, the Roads and Traffic Agency is continuously in discussions with those who need it,” said Minister Peeters. “Some may have been a bit nonchalant about this, but that has been corrected in the last two weeks.”
The Roads and Traffic Agency is currently working on a large-scale renovation of the tunnels at the Leonard Crossing, where the highways of the Brussels ring road and the E411 meet. More than 100,000 vehicles pass through the intersection every day. The second phase of the works started this week, which is causing unexpected additional disruption. The tunnel tubes turned out to be in worse condition than initially thought.
The works started on March 18 at the entrance to the tunnel shaft of the inner ring. The renovation of the side walls at the exit of the same shaft started on April 16. In order to carry out these works safely, the connecting road of the E411 is closed to traffic from Oudergem/Herrmann Debroux and the inner ring road (towards Waterloo).
Lydia Peeters (center) during her visit to the works. — © BELGA
Undercut traffic
However, local authorities and the Walloon and Brussels governments were concerned about the extra cut-through traffic that the diversions would cause and had asked for the works to be postponed by a week. Minister Peeters did not respond to this: “A postponement is really out of the question,” she says. “If we had to postpone the works, we would have to close the tunnel completely. We really can’t do that.”
There has been sufficient consultation between the various parties involved, the minister assures. “There was already clear communication with Brussels Mobility in February. Perhaps this was treated nonchalantly,” says Peeters. “In any case, great momentum has been set in motion over the past two weeks to provide sufficient diversions and signaling in the Brussels Capital Region.”
Agreement found
The same sound can be heard at the Agency itself. “There have been meetings about the diversions. But we have not received official approval from Brussels Mobility, although an agreement was reached during the meetings,” says spokesperson Anton De Coster. “The information about the diversions is also on their website. The diversion signs are still in place at the moment, so in principle people should know how to take a detour.”
The disruption on Thursday, when the connecting road was closed for the first time, “was not exaggerated and fortunately not too bad,” says De Coster. “We hope that it will remain that way in the coming days.”